Books: Sex & Sand

The marriage of Porter and Katherine Moresby was obviously a flop and
their North African jaunt was bringing out the worst in it. In the
little Arab town of Bou Noura, they lay on a hotel bed fully clothed,
getting drunk on a bottle of Scotch. A mosquito netting kept off the
vicious flies, and as they talked, the star-studded African twilight
fell and native drums kept up an insistent rhythm. Being wealthy and
intense young New York intellectuals, Kit and Port Moresby glibly fell
into lingo so appropriate that Noel Coward might have...